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    The Shops
    by Berton Braley

    Factories are crude and ugly places
        Even at best, and most of them are filled,
    With belts and shafts, machinery that races,
    And men with heavy hands and grimy faces,
        And noise, noise, noise! -- noise that is ever spilled
    Upon the air like molten, white hot steel
        So fierce it is; noise that is ground and shrilled,
            Pounded and shrieked and hummed,
            Clattered and drummed --
    Noise of the furnace and the hammer, squeal
        Of monster planers, crunch of giant shears,
        Rumble of rollers thudding on the ears
    With most intolerable clamor, yet these places
    Are where the dreams are built.
                                -- Through far flung spaces
    The long trains thunder; over vasty seas
        The ships move on superbly; towers rise
        Graceful and strong against the arching skies
    Of roaring cities, -- miracles like these
        -- All the huge wonders of this plangent time --
        Are born of ugly shops bedimmed with grime.

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